


Leap Year

by RhinoHill



Category: Sanctuary (TV), Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst and Feels, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/F, Humour, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22295251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhinoHill/pseuds/RhinoHill
Summary: On leap year night, Kate balls up her courage and asks her boss on a date.Sort of. Almost.Basically, she introduces her to the other woman she stans: Samantha Carter.With consequences she never expected.--oOo--
Relationships: Kate Freelander/Helen Magnus
Comments: 28
Kudos: 26





	1. 29 February

**Author's Note:**

> Whether you ship Helen with Kate, Nicola or not at all, I hope you enjoy reading about her life behind the scenes. Apart from one gratuitous line in chapter 6, I tried my best to capture Helen, for everyone who misses her.
> 
> Inspired by @Caladenia's Star Trek and Stargate crossover fics. Fingers crossed that you have more fun reading this than Kate does at the start of her disastrous evening...
> 
> \--oOo--

“Oh, for god’s sake, she’s pathetic! Why doesn’t she just tell him how she feels? How do you find this spineless angst relaxing?”  
Helen turns on me, pinning me as if she knows.

“Just keep watching, Doc. You’ll grow to like her, trust me.” Henry says.  
Henry. Thank god for him. Maybe he’ll convince her of Sam Carter. At least he’s stopped her from looking at me as if she can hear my thoughts.

_You should stick to Star Trek Voyager. Woman in charge. She’ll like tha_ t. I replay my conversation with him in my head as she mercifully turns back towards the screen. I want to be near her, but she scares the shit out of me.

The TV night was my idea. It’s the 29th of February, after all. A single day every four years that we get for free. When I was little, it was the day girls were allowed to ask boys out on a date. _Allowed to_. I snort internally. Yet here I am. Kate Freelander. Mid-thirties, assassin for hire. And I used my geek friend to arrange a date with my boss.

With chaperones. For fuck’s sake.

“Hmm. She’s a genius. Hmm. Blows up suns.” Biggie doesn’t know. I’m sure he doesn’t know why Stargate SG-1 was chosen, but as he brings in a fresh tray of popcorn and soda - and tea for her - I thank him with my biggest smile. I didn’t even know he was a fan.

“I’m not disputing her intelligence,” she leans forward to pour steaming tea into a cup as delicate as her hands and pins Big with her gaze. “But that’s hardly worthy of a ten-season series, is it? Besides, if she’s smart enough to build Naquidah reactors, she has to have enough sense to figure a way around the Air Force rules so she can be with him. Why all the pointless pining?”

Well, that had gone exactly according to plan and simultaneously blown up all over my face.  
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Henry’s amused smirk.   
_Why don’t you just tell her how you feel?_ He’d asked when I’d told him of my plan to puzzle out her thoughts about dating within the team by showing her Sam and Jack’s chemistry on the Stargate Series.

_Because I don’t know how she feels. About relationships at work. Or me. Or women, for god’s sake!_ Even after two years living in the same ancient mansion, she remains a mystery. A mystery with a smile that melts bone. And tonight, I thought, I would finally get my first date with her, and crack one digit of her code. Even if the date involved sitting on the opposite end of the couch, with Henry wedged between us.

Better that way. Because from her reaction, she wants Sam and Jack to be together, even though they're on the same team. And if that's really how she feels, and if we were alone, I might do something reckless, like straddling her, like tracing the outline of her lips with my fingertips. Like telling her how desperately I want her.

“Ooh, this is a good bit. This is where he realises he loves her.” I swear Henry grins in my direction over his running commentary as the music swells and the scene on the giant monitor changes.

She sets down her cup, draws herself up to her full height, her eyes flashing sapphire flame. She’s tied her hair up tonight, and she’s wearing a deep blue sweater. I don’t think she’s ever been more beautiful. “Only now? He’s denser than he looks, then.”

“You’re a shipper.” I manage a croak, and hide it behind a gulp of Coca-Cola. 

“A what?” She pronounces it “whot”. I want to hear her say it over and over.   
Fuck. I need to get a grip.

“A shipper.” I grab a handful of popcorn. “A fan who wants two characters to be together.”

“I am hardly a fan.” She swishes her ponytail back behind her shoulder. “And clearly the writers of this show were the shippers, as you call them. They give Sam and Jack complementary personalities and keep putting them in situations where they can’t help but fall in love. It’s barely believable that they never act on it.”

She picks up her cup and takes a sip. I can’t begin to know her, but I know this move. The matter is closed. She’s made up her mind. 

The nervous flame that’s been burning in my belly gutters, and dies. I push up off the couch, hiding the lump that suddenly appeared in my throat behind a yawn.

“Well, I’m glad you liked the show.” I can’t keep the bitterness out of my words. “Happy leap year. I hope you had enough fun to last you the next four.”

I can’t bear to look at any of them as I stalk out of the room.

—oOo—

The sounds of the house slow down around my swirling mind. Sounds I’ve grown to love. Because they remind me of her. I clasp my knees closer to my chest on the window seat and stare out at the lights of Old City as they blink out one by one. 

It was stupid. I am stupid. She’s my boss. Not only that. She’s a hundred and fifty seven years old. What could she possibly see in a scrappy little girl with an attitude and a murky past?   
I thought tonight would bring relief, but all it brought was pain. Because now I know how far apart we really are.

There is a soft knock at my bedroom door.

Wiping my thumb across my left cheek, then my right, I step over discarded clothes on my way to the door.

“May I come in?” Her voice is quiet in the midnight hush.

She slips inside and steps back, pressing the door closed behind her. In the dark, her silhouette is all I see. She fills the air with the scent of old books and jasmine. Despite myself, I close my eyes and breathe her in.

“Kate.” Her hand cups my chin.

“It’s not because we work together.” Slowly, her fingers begin to move. They feather down my neck, over the pulse that races there. They linger on my eyebrows. They trace the angle of my cheek.

She knows. She knows everything. And she’s here. A small flame kindles in my chest.

“I’ve watched all my lovers die.” In the filtered moonlight, her mouth curves into sadness.

I reach up and brush her lips, trying to ease the grief out of them.

“I can’t do that again, Kate.” She breathes against my fingers. “Please understand.”

Her hands disappear from my face. She steps forward, pressing her body into mine. A crack of light appears behind her and I realise she only pressed against me to open the door.

She only leaned in closer to tell me why she was walking away.

  
  



	2. Pitbull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whoa. When had “aren’t Sam and Jack a cute couple” morphed into “you don’t have to watch me die”?
> 
> I don’t know what I was expecting from tonight. Closure, maybe, or perhaps the opposite. The start of a friendship, of something that could grow into fond touches and, one day, a stolen kiss, a shy smile.
> 
> Not this. Not the realisation that she has seen right through me. That she cares about me. That she wants me to stay away so that she won’t have yet more to mourn.
> 
> \--oOo--

My brother calls me the Pitbull. Because once I get hold of an idea, I chew it until it’s dead or broken.   
I can’t stop chewing on her words. 

She’d come into my room at midnight, she’d run her fingers over my face. And she’d turned me down. 

She knew how I felt all along, I realize. Was I that transparent? I’m mortified. And anger sparks amid the shame. Why the hell did she wait two years to tell me, then? Why wait until tonight?

_Because you never asked her on a stupid, teenage date before, idiot. Because until tonight she thought you would be professional._

Fuck. 

I spin on my heels, angrily pick up clothes and toss them into drawers. Anything to keep my body moving faster than my mind.   
Not that it works. 

She waited until the others had gone to sleep so they wouldn’t have to see her turning me down. And all that talk of dead lovers. For goodness sake. She picked the one excuse no normal human could argue with, so that I would back off for good. She’d never even said anything about lovers still alive. It was the perfect, poised rejection. She had been fucking KIND to me. 

And yet. And yet she hadn’t needed to touch me to let me down. She hadn’t needed to run her fingers over my skin. 

What if she had meant it? What if the sadness in her mouth was loss, and not distaste at having to slap another lovesick puppy down?

_I’ve watched all my lovers die._ The words loop themselves around my heart. 

I have to talk to her. I have to offer her the choice. I whirl out of my room, catching the door a second before it slams. Urgent steps carry me to the lift that leads from our floor to hers. 

Outside her office door, I pause, lift my chin, straighten my shoulders, knock twice, and barge in before my courage can desert me. 

She's sitting on the couch, facing the fire that always crackles in the hearth. Seeing me, she twists her bare feet out from under her and stands. It is still there, the pull of pain around her lips. Keeping the couch between us, she puts her book down and folds her arms loosely around her waist. And looks at me. Waiting. 

I swallow. This afternoon, planning it all with Henry, it had been fun. Exciting. The thrill of the unknown. This afternoon, my heart didn’t depend on her answers. 

“You don’t have to watch me die,” I jump in feet-first. “I’ll resign before then. I don’t want you to see me when I’m wrinkled and decrepit any more than you do. I’ll resign and move away.”

_Whoa. When had “aren’t Sam and Jack a cute couple” morphed into “you don’t have to watch me die”?_ I fold my own arms to match her and try humour. 

“Probably sooner rather than later. The resignation thing, I mean. My one leg isn’t what it used to be, you know. Not since my boss shot me during my job interview.”

There it is - the small curl of acknowledgement that lifts the corners of her mouth. She got the joke. But the pain etched around her eyes remains. And underneath it, something harder. Frustration.

She opens her arms in a gesture I have come to know. It’s not an invitation. It’s a sign that her next words are last she’s willing to offer this conversation.

“And what makes you think I’ll forget you when you leave? What makes you think I’ll stop caring about you, just because you’re gone?” Her hands close around her waist. Not loosely, like before. LIke a tourniquet. As if she’s holding herself together. “Can’t you see the futility of asking me not to care? Can’t you see it’s already too late for that?”

She shuts her eyes. She can’t even look at me. 

My mouth opens, but I can’t find words. My hand fumbles for the door and I stumble out.

I’m on the roof before I know where I am heading. The late February air whips my hair around my face and cuts through my shirt. It lifts the tears that sting my eyes before they have a chance to fall.

I don’t know what I was expecting from tonight. Closure, maybe, or perhaps the opposite. The start of a friendship, of something that could grow into fond touches and, one day, a stolen kiss, a shy smile.

Not this. Not the realisation that she has seen right through me. That she cares about me. That she wants me to stay away so that she won’t have yet more to mourn. My heart feels as cold as the winter wind. This is not the closure I wanted. If this is how I make her feel, no wonder she can’t look at me.

_Can’t you see the futility of asking me not to care? Can’t you see it’s already too late for that?_

The February night wraps me in its darkness. No, not February anymore. The clock has struck. It’s March. A new month. And time for me to stop being a coward.

I repeat the words I need to say all the way to her office door, before they dry up again. I hover in front of the dark wood for minutes. I need to do this final thing, before I patch my heart up and move on.

A door ten metres further down the hall opens silently. She’s framed in the doorway. Her hair tumbles loose over her shoulders. It must be the door to her bedroom, I realise.

“I imagine you’re looking for me, not admiring the grain in the oak.” She steps back, opening the door wider for me to follow her in.

“How did you…” _know I was there?_ My question trails off as she nods to a bank of security monitors set into a large frame against one wall. Oh.

I take her bedroom in. It’s even more like her than her office. A dark leather armchair facing an open-backed hearth. The same fire that burns in her office warms her bedroom. Behind me, an enormous four poster bed. Above her pillows, a painting in swirls of burgundy and midnight blue. Behind her, next to the bank of security monitors, a small desk of antique wood holding a kettle and a tea service, and a slender computer.

“You have more to say.” Her face is carefully passive. She lets no emotion slip through. The consummate professional.

I nod. “Just this. And. And I’m sorry if you don’t like it. I’m sorry that you’ve had so many people to mourn. But if you’re going to mourn us anyway, why be lonely in the meantime? Why choose to be alone before you have to be?” 

The certainty I found in the night wind pushes the truth out of me. “I’ll never be the great love of your life. I know that. That’s okay. But I can be a friend. Or. Or whatever you need. If you really will miss me when I’m gone, I don’t understand why you won’t just let me love you while I'm here.”

I’m done. I’ve said what I came to say. I finally chewed this thing between us to death, Pitbull that I am. But at least I’ve called her on her self-enforced loneliness. Defiantly, I look up into her face.

Her mouth opens. She releases a slow breath. She takes one step towards me, then another.

And suddenly, her hands are in my hair, her body crushed against me as she consumes me with her kiss.


	3. The sweetest thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My love she throws me like a rubber ball  
> Oh, oh, the sweetest thing  
> But she won’t catch me, or break my fall.  
> Oh, oh, the sweetest thing.  
> You know I’ve got black eyes, but they burn so brightly for her,  
> Ours is a strange kind of love.  
> \- U2, the Sweetest Thing
> 
> \--oOo--

I can taste solitude in the depth of her kiss, in the way she moves to keep the length of my body pressed against her. I float, serene in the wake of her her fire, shivering under her heat.

“God, you’re freezing.” She pulls her head back, even as her arms wrap more closely around my shoulders, as if she’s scared I’ll disappear. “You shouldn’t be on the roof in winter without a coat. And you shouldn’t climb the railings like that.” Her tongue sweeps over her lower lip, mesmerising me. “A single gust of wind and you could have plummeted to your death.”

Right. She’s Helen Fucking Magnus. Woman in charge. She sets my skin alight, but she’s not going to be a normal girlfriend. I tuck my lower lip between my teeth and cock an eyebrow at her.

“Sorry.” She casts a quick frown at the bank of monitors. “I just wanted to know that you were safe. Kate -” Emotions skitter across her eyes, silk chasing steel as she fights herself for control. “Come, let’s get you warm.”

Her hand slides down my arm to catch my fingers. I nod, then dissolve into a fit of giggles when she pulls towards the fire and I turn towards her bed. Our arms stretch between us like tango dancers mid-spin. A flush creeps up her cheeks as she follows me. 

I pull back the heavy spread, and can’t suppress a shudder. I am suddenly chilled to the bone, lethargic with cold. Her free arm wraps around my waist from behind before I know I’m wobbling. Gently, she spins me around, presses me down to sit on the bed. She crouches at my feet, and in a moment, my boots are on the floor. Her hand is warm on the back of my calf. 

“Can you take off your jeans for me?”

It should be so sexy. So many variations of those words have featured in my daydreams. But I am so tired, all I can do is to follow her suggestion with clumsy fingers.

“Good. That’s good,” she’s soothing me like a patient, I think as I see her moving in and out of focus. She dances out of her jeans, stepping forward to press her bare legs around mine. They shock my skin with their heat. 

Her hands slide my shirt over my head, leaving burning trails along my ribs. I shudder again. She makes me shudder uncontrollably.

Her arms lift her blue sweater over her head and settle it on me. It’s softer than a cloud, and warm, so warm. It’s filled with her scent. It lulls me to sleep where I sit.

Hot arms fold around me from behind. I shake my head, confused. In the second since I closed my eyes, she’s shifted onto the bed. How can she move so fast? I’m bone tired, and I can’t figure her out, but I crave her heat.

She pulls me backwards, into her, and wraps her legs around me, settling the heavy spread over us. I fold my hands around my arms, shivering for warmth. A gentle hand, burning hot, circles my wrist, and a distant part of my mind recognises her fingertip pressing against my pulse. Her other hand snakes up under her sweater to settle over my heart. She pulls me closer, her scent of books and jasmine all around me. 

The last thing I remember is her hot breath on my cheek as she whispers: “rest now, my sweet Kate. Rest.”

—oOo—

I blink awake in pre-dawn gray, momentarily confused. Heavy blankets weigh me down and limbs are tangled round me.

SHIT. It’s her. I didn’t dream it. It really happened. I’m lying in her bed. In her arms. She’d kissed me, and then she... I blink again. And then… I don’t remember what happened after the kiss. And I hadn’t even been drinking. I flush guiltily. 

She was a spectacular kisser, though. Burning, making me shiver with her heat. 

A memory is trying to surface. A memory of cold. Involuntarily, my arms wrap around me in the warm cocoon of her bed.

“Gnnn” she groans in her sleep. I can feel the moment she snaps into wakefulness behind me. I lie still, barely daring to breathe as I I feel her pressing into me, the firm swell of her breasts, the soft dip of her belly, the scrape of lace panties in the small of my back. Her hand moves on my chest, and I shudder as it slips off my breast to come to rest over my heart. I know she can feel it hammering in with her closeness. Her other hand wraps around my wrist, then slides up to my neck to settle on my pulse there. 

“What are you doing?” I breathe as she shuffles down under the covers, stroking the length of my leg until her fingers come to rest on the pulse in my ankle. She feels first one leg, then the other, then wraps her hands around my toes. She hasn’t spoken, but her hair trails down my back, her breath tingling along my spine. 

She shuffles back up, and when I feel her head breaking out from the covers, I twist around to face her. Her blue eyes, framed by a wild halo of dark curls, ignite the fire in my gut. I don’t care if her morning routine is fucking weird. I want her.

“God, you’re beautiful.” I press her legs apart with mine so that I can lie against her, gasping when the wet heat at my core touches her thigh.

Even through the soft wool of the blue sweater that I remember her wearing last night, but that now inexplicably covers my arms, I can feel her body responding. But she’s fighting it.

“I was checking your pulse points.” Her voice rises from her belly, every vibration filling me with more need.

“Um, yes, I got that.” I can’t stop a smile. “Is it a vampire thing? Checking your victim is still alive in the morning?”

“What?” Confusion folds a line between her eyes, quickly replaced by an eye roll and a dimpled smile. But only a moment later, it’s pushed aside by concern. 

“Kate,” she tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, her fingertips lingering along my jaw. “What do you remember?”

I know why she’s asking. After our kiss, everything turns from crystal clear to hazy, as if someone twisted the focus button on the night. I wonder vaguely if I’d been drugged, but that’s impossible. I want to puzzle it out, but her eyes on me, the tension in her mouth, make me realise she’s asking something else. She needs to know what I remember about us.

My fingers lace into the spaces between hers where they cup my face. I take a deep breath.

“Well, let’s see,” I begin, snuggling closer to her. “I arranged the most disastrous date ever. Hank was wedged between us the whole time, and you hated my choice of show.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” she smiles her dimpled smile again. 

“Oh, come on. You hated Sam Carter.”

Henry had warned me of that. _She’ll hate Sam, because they’re too similar_ , he’d told me. _Both geniuses who can kill you in their sleep. Both lonely underneath all the world savin’. They even have freakishly similar smiles. She’ll hate her._

“I did not hate her,” she breaks into my reverie. “I just didn’t buy someone that intelligent not finding a way to be with the man she so clearly loved. It was a flaw in her character. That’s all.”

I don’t even have a chance to point out the obvious irony before her eyes darken. The pain in them pulls at my heart. 

“What do you remember after that.” She’s looking down now, as if she is afraid to face me while I answer. Her voice is flat, too hesitant even to form a question.

The words I spoke to her are still burnt into my chest. It takes no effort to repeat them.

“I’ll never be the great love of your life. I know that. But I can be a friend. Or whatever you need. If you really will miss me when I’m gone, I don’t understand why you won’t just let me love you until then.”

The tension leaves her body like a ghost fleeing the dawn. When she looks back up, tears shimmer in her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispers.

She lies, curled into me, her breathing so deep and slow I’m sure she’s fallen asleep again. I feel as if I’m holding a hummingbird, terrified to move and chase her away.

“You went into hypothermic shock after being on the roof for so long.” Her breath raises gooseflesh on my neck. “I monitored your recovery until the worst danger had passed. But I wanted to be certain that all was well this morning.”

The blurring, the aching cold, makes sense to me now. I roll over, pinning her beneath me. “And there I thought I was weak because you’d ravished me and sucked my blood.”

With a speed that takes my breath away, she tucks her leg under my thigh and flips me. Both my hands are in a vice-like grip above my head. Her mouth lifts in a sly half-smirk. “Zhat can be arranged, if zhe lady wishez to be ravisssshed,” I’ve heard her speaking Albanian, so I know how hammed the accent is. A helpless giggle bubbles through me, quickly replaced by a gasp as her teeth scrape along my neck. 

“I vill need to sharpen my teezh, zhough.” She nips me sharply, and licks the tender flesh when a moan tears free. “It’zz been yearzzz sinzhe I feasssted on a virgin.”


	4. Reality Bites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But have you felt the high of having your lover sip your heart-blood?”
> 
> She changes like clouds in the wind. Look, it’s always been hard to keep pace with her mind, but this teasing, sexy, laughing person pulls my feet out from under me every time I try to move. Could this really have been hiding under her serious demeanour all this time? Could she have been that lonely?
> 
> \--oOo--

“Hey!” I wiggle in her grasp, though the futility of my action is obvious. Even without the effect of source blood in her veins, she would have to be stronger and faster than most people to last one round with Biggie. And we all know she trains with him every morning at 5:30. “Who’re you calling a virgin!”

She moves with the speed and grace of a cheetah. In an instant, without releasing my hands, she’s straddling me, looking down at me with that knowing smile. Her free hand tugs her sweater and my bra-strap off my left shoulder and slips under its edge until her fingertips come to rest on the swell of my breast. Under her featherlight touch, I can feel the pulse of blood in an artery just under my skin. 

“Well, have you felt the high of having your lover sip your heart-blood?” Her voice thrums so low I can feel the words vibrating through my body. My spine turns to liquid fire. I can think of nothing other than her lips closing on my skin, the sharp, cutting pain, and of bliss.

“No,” I manage to breathe as her lips sink onto my mouth. 

Slowly, the tip of her tongue traces the line of my teeth. I can feel her lips curving into a smile. “Hmmm. Virgin.” Suddenly, laughter bubbles through her body, growing louder until she releases me and rolls onto her side, clutching her stomach. 

She changes like clouds in the wind. Look, it’s always been hard to keep pace with her mind, but this teasing, sexy, laughing person pulls my feet out from under me every time I try to move. Could this really have been hiding under her serious demeanour all this time? Could she have been that lonely? My throat tightens. I push up to sitting and wrap my arms around my knees.

She stills at my movement and sits up, twisting to face me. Her skin glows against the lace and satin of rose-pink lingerie. A fresh thrill passes through me at the thought of taking mine off for her for the first time. I don’t recall ever waking up with someone with my underwear intact - or theirs. It feels sweetly old-fashioned. And it makes me ache to hold her, this strange chimera of power and gentleness.

Her expression darkens. She folds her fingers over my hands. “I promise I won’t suck your blood.” A shadow passes over her face, and she breaks eye contact. “I hope that’s not a disappointment.”

The loneliness crowds back into the room. It’s as if she disappears behind a skein of smoke. I wish I could find the secret code that will bring back her laughter. I would do anything to get back the smile that reaches all the way into her eyes. 

_If you really will miss me when I’m gone, let me love you until then._

When I told her that, it had been a cry of selfish anger. I wanted her. I wanted to wake up and feel her next to me. I wanted to know her lips on mine.   
But in the pale gray light of dawn, I see her closing the shutters around her heart and I know what loving her will be. The most delicate dance of my life. Loving her enough to make her believe in love again. 

The problem is, when you’ve done life on your own for long enough, when you’ve told enough other people that attachment makes you weak, you wake up one day believing it. 

The problem is, she believes that now.   
The problem is, so do I.

A soft beep from the console on her desk, and the lights in the room turn on. The mask that slipped in the night fastens itself on her again. She rises, in control in every way despite wearing only lingerie. 

“I need start getting ready for the day, I’m afraid.” As if I’ve overstayed an invitation to tea.

“I know,” I say. “You’ve got to beat up Biggie in fifteen minutes.”

I dress in silence while she disappears into her walk-in wardrobe. With every passing breath, the dread in me grows blacker.  
_Let me love you,_ I had said. But I’m not sure that I know how.  
Carefully, I fold her sweater and place it at the foot of her bed. I walk towards the door.  
_Let me love you._   
But in the cold light of day, I don’t think I am strong enough.

“Kate.” Her voice stops me with my hand on the doorknob.

She’s holding her sweater against her chest.  
She takes a step towards me, then another.

“Keep this?” She holds it out to me. She doesn’t move her hand back when I reach for it and we touch. Her eyes search my face, looking for an answer I don’t have. “And stop by the lab this afternoon. I want to make sure you have no residual effects from the hypothermia.”

I nod, folding the soft square of blue that smells of her over my hands.

The door is already open in my hand when I turn back.

“Helen, don’t be too hard on Sam Carter, okay? Telling someone how you feel only sounds easy until you have to do it.”


	5. An Episode of Sparrows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She drops to her haunches, only a flimsy sheet of hospital green between us and the crowd of strangers.
> 
> “What are you…?”
> 
> Her head is between my knees, staring fire up at me. Warm hands glide down the inside of my legs. One by one, my boots drop to the floor. She circles each ankle with her hands, sliding over the pulse. She cups my toes in her palms. 
> 
> “Circulation to your feet seems undamaged. Any tingling in your legs?” Her voice is a low murmur. I was trembling at her touch, but her words send jolts of heat racing to meet her hands. Can she seriously be asking that? Every part of me she touches tingles, for god’s sake! And crouching down like that, between my legs, looking up with parted lips?
> 
> \--oOo--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden was a set work in my senior year in school. I barely had time for class, between keeping myself and my brother out of trouble and finding food for my mother and us, but one scene in the book hooked so deep into my skin that I stole the book and smuggled it home under my dress at the end of the year, just to read it again. In the scene, two adults who have grown to love the small, scrappy child they’re forced to care for, talk about her while she’s in the room. They don’t want to let her know how they feel about her, so instead of talking about her, they talk about the plant that she’s been growing. It’s one of the most tender scenes I’ve ever read."
> 
> These are Kate's words, but the book hooked into my skin as a teenager. And yes, I brought it home so I could read that scene again and again.
> 
> I've always been fascinated by situations where people can only speak in riddles. I hope this one makes you smile.
> 
> \--oOo--

Her folded sweater stares at me from the foot of my bed. A square of sky blue that smells of jasmine and leather and feels like her touch. Yet here I am, alone, unsure if the gift was a promise or a parting.

A knock on my door startles me. Will pops his head around the door. He looks almost as bleary as I feel. “Good Movie night?” He asks, as usual forgoing introduction to head straight into analysis. 

“Looks like I got more sleep than Abby gave you.” The only way to deal with Dr Zimmerman is to slap him with a dose of his own medicine. I only wish I knew how to do that to the doctor whose sweater is now a suspicious lump under my duvet. Too late, I realise that Will was the one person who never saw her wearing it last night. The one person who wouldn’t know what her sweater on my bed could mean.

“Yeah, well. No rest for the wicked.” He stifles a yawn. “Magnus needs us. She’s found a nest of sick abnormals.”

I fall into step behind him, exchanging inanities, wishing to god I didn’t have to go where my feet are taking me. Or that at least I could be better prepared before facing her again.

Biggie and Henry are already in her office, looking at the footage on her screen. I rest the back of my legs against her couch. _Her couch_. Saying that today feels so different. And I try to pretend today is yesterday afternoon, but it isn’t.

“The most seriously affected are already on their way to us, but I need you to secure the building they were staying in, and collect any evidence that could help us understand what’s making them ill.” She looks between Henry, Will and me as she speaks. That’s good. Safety in numbers.

“Kate, if you don’t feel up to it at any point, let Henry and Will carry on without you.”

FUCK. So much for safety in numbers. I cannot believe she’s doing this. She, of all the people in the world, should understand that you can be more than just one thing. If she believes - even for a second - that I will let her diminish me to a damsel under her wing, she has a world of hurt heading her way.

I open my mouth to spit a retort. And am silenced by a commanding flash of indigo eyes above a stern mouth and folded arms. Her toe taps a warning on the wooden floor.

“You were in hypothermic shock eight hours ago. You’re strong Kate, but even though your vitals have returned to normal, we don’t know the toll it took on your system. I wouldn’t be sending someone less resilient than you into the field at all. But I need you. Just, take care.”

_An Episode of Sparrows_ by Rumer Godden was a set work in my senior year in school. I barely had time for class, between keeping myself and my brother out of trouble and finding food for my mother and us, but one scene in the book hooked so deep into my skin that I stole the book and smuggled it home under my dress at the end of the year, just to read it again. In the scene, two adults who have grown to love the small, scrappy child they’re forced to care for, talk about her while she’s in the room. They don’t want to let her know how they feel about her, so instead of talking about her, they talk about the plant that she’s been growing. It’s one of the most tender scenes I’ve ever read.

_Sparrows_ is not a book most people have heard of. I don’t know if she has, and I have no way of knowing if her sub-text was even intended. But the possible meaning behind her words, the fact that she _could_ think I’m strong, that she _could_ need me, makes hope prickle in my gut.

“Wait. Hypothermic shock? I thought you were watching TV series last night?” Will cranks his surprised face up to full volume.

“We find ways to enjoy ourselves, even when you’re on a date, Dr Zimmermann.” Her dimpled smile shuts him down more firmly than a punch. And it makes me want to kiss her more than ever.

—oOo—

  
Four hours have passed by the time we return. My eyes sting with the dull, familiar dryness brought on by lack of sleep, but curiosity drags me to the infirmary instead of my room. My jaw drops when I round the corner. At least thirty adults and children are crammed into the room, lying on beds, on trolleys, on the floor, the stronger-looking ones sitting up against the walls. Biggie and Magnus move in sync without making eye contact, measuring temperatures and pulses, bending down to listen and respond with small gestures, a touch on an arm, a squeeze on the shoulder. But a crease folds deep between her eyes.

As I back away, she looks up and her mouth loses its tightness. “Kate, you’re back. How are you feeling?”

_I’m soaring now_ , I want to say, _because seeing me made you look happier_. Instead, I pick my way towards her between prone bodies. “I’m fine. We collected samples and Hank scanned the space. How are things going here?” I hesitate. Sick people make my skin itch, but… “Can I help?”

From her half-smile, I know she remembers every comment I’ve made about germs since she put a bullet through my leg twenty-five months ago.

“Let’s see how you’re holding up, first.” Her gloves snap as she discards them at the side of the only vacant bed - a narrow space in the middle of the room, with a hospital-green curtain on a rail ready to surround it. 

I puff out my cheeks. It’s only a physical examination, but that pale shade of green tightens my stomach and shortens my breath. I hate hospitals. Their smell, their death. Most of all, the way they take away my control. Why did I have to fall for a doctor?

“After you,” she nods at me. The curtain is already in her hand.

With a groan, I bounce on to the narrow bed, dangling my feet over the edge. 

She drops to her haunches, only a flimsy sheet of hospital green between us and the crowd of strangers.

“What are you…?”

Her head is between my knees, staring fire up at me. Warm hands glide down the inside of my legs. One by one, my boots drop to the floor. She circles each ankle with her hands, sliding over the pulse. She cups my toes in her palms. 

“Circulation to your feet seems undamaged. Any tingling in your legs?” Her voice is a low murmur. I was trembling at her touch, but her words send jolts of heat racing to meet her hands. _Can she seriously be asking that? Every part of me she touches tingles, for god’s sake! And crouching down like that, between my legs, looking up with parted lips?_

A disbelieving grimace is all I can manage.

Her tongue flicks over her lips, and she rises up in front of me, standing snug between my legs. 

The hollow of her throat is close enough to kiss.

She traces her fingers down my arms, pausing on the pulse in my wrists just long enough to flood me with uncertainty. It’s a medical exam. She’s doing a medical exam. There are people, sick and maybe dying, right behind the curtain. It’s a medical exam. That’s all it is. I shut my eyes.

And they fly open when her right hand cups my cheek.

The fingers of her left hand twine into mine. “And your leg, where that unbelievably inconsiderate woman shot you during your job interview?” 

I can feel her whisper on my lips. The slightest shift of my weight is all it takes to press myself against her. “I’d feel safer if you checked it out,” I breathe against her mouth.

Silently, secretly, her tongue traces the line of my teeth. Her fingers feather the outline of my ear. I curl my legs around her.

Her head pulls back, even as her body edges closer. “I have to get back to them.”   
She is so close, she needs to make no sound. Our lips read each other by touch.

I nod so she can feel my understanding, then turn my eyes towards the room behind the curtain. “Diagnosis?”

Pain contorts her eyes. “Nothing. It’s like a reaction to a neurotoxin. I hope Will or Henry find the agent.”

A fierce beep echoes through the vaulted space. A medical alarm.

Her eyes close in resignation, her shoulders stiffen, and the hospital curtain that sheltered us is bunched in her grip again. She twists away to tend to patients, and I remain, bare-footed, bare-souled, on a bed that smells of hospitals and her.

—oOo—

I’ve fed the residents, checked the perimeter alarms. Henry and Will are locked away, analysing everything we found, because the abnormals with human form and feathered wings are dying despite everything she does. At midnight, I find myself back at the infirmary door. My muscles ache with exhaustion, but she’s been awake just as long as I have.

“What can I do?” 

She steps over recumbent forms, an angel of hope in a mask and disposable gown. “You’ve already helped.” Tiredness shutters her eyes.

I have to bite back the urge to tuck the strand of hair escaping from her surgical cap behind her ear. People are watching.

“Can’t I at least give them water or somethin?”

Exhausted eyes crease above a mask-hidden smile. She steps back, allowing me in. “Gloves, gown, and mask,” she orders. “I think they’d appreciate water from someone who doesn’t stick needles into them.” While I grab the protective gear, she rummages in her workstation. 

“Kate.” She’s quiet when she turns to me again, holding out a dozen slips of red paper. She doesn’t quite look me in the eye. “If anyone is unresponsive - I mean unconscious rather than asleep - don’t raise the alarm. Place this on their chest and move on.”

—oOo—

I pace my bedroom like a tiger in a zoo. It’s been two hours since I left her and Big in the infirmary. By then, the number of red tags on chests had risen from three to nineteen.

When the first unconscious, winged child had started gasping for breath, I had backed against the wall. It was all too familiar.

“I need to intubate him!” She’d shouted at Big, her gloved hands already lifting his small, lolling head. “Size eleven tube. Kate, it’s time for you to go.”

And it had been. Watching my mother choking would never leave my nightmares. As I stumbled up the stairs, I wondered numbly how she knew about that. But maybe she was just being a good doctor. Maybe that was it.

My body aches under the scalding shower, and as I cool, I pace, unable to rest while I know what she’s facing four floors below.

A lump in my duvet draws my eye. Her blue sweater. As soft as our stolen cubicle kiss. I don’t believe in telepathy - well, not unless the telepath is a certified abnormal. But looking at her sweater, I slow. I drop my towel and pull it on. Her scent surrounds me and I push strength and peace back into it. I don’t believe in telepathy, but if even the smallest hint of strength reaches her, it’s something I want to do.

I turn out the light, pull the covers over my bare legs, twist my fingers into the soft blue weave that hugs my skin, and dream of strength and peace and healing.

—oOo— 

A crack of light falls across me. A shadow slips into my room.

Instinct kicks hardest in the dead of night. With an animal growl, I snap up the gun under my pillow and charge.

“It’s me, Kate.” Her hands rise against the darkness. “It’s me.”

“Sorry.” The gun drops with a clatter on my bedside table. “Are they…?”

“Gone.” The word is dead. Her voice is dead. The human angels are all dead.

“Fuck. I’m sorry.” I take her hand. Her skin is cold.

“I.” She releases a ragged breath. “I just needed to feel someone alive.”

I lead her to my bed. She stands, unmoving, as if she’s unsure what to do.

I get back into bed and pull her along after me, fully clothed.  
“So hold me.”

A single sob racks her body. Then, she folds herself against me, drops her head against my chest, and falls into a silent sleep that drags me down after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'An Episode of Sparrows' is a thank you note to all the unicorns who read my work on the AO3 and encouraged my first clumsy steps as author.
> 
> Today, I entered final negotiations with Penguin Random House about publishing an OC fiction series that AO3 made me brave enough to write. The angels in this chapter don't stick around, but real angels - each of you - are all around us.
> 
> THANK YOU for every Kudos, bookmark and comment. Your feedback matters.  
> Your feedback gives fledgeling authors wings.
> 
> xo


	6. Save the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Go, save the world.” I give her a playful shove towards the edge of the bed. “Besides, letting you relax for more than five minutes would have been too dangerous - you would have gone into shock or something.”
> 
> She stills. “That’s it. They had an allergic reaction. It all fits.” She bends down and plants a loud kiss on my lips, bouncing up and away before I can even react. “You’re brilliant.”
> 
> “Confused is what I am,” I counter. I honestly have no idea what she’s talking about. “And a little horny,” I whisper to myself as she opens the door. 
> 
> \--oOo--

Her hands have curled under the sweater and are hugging the small of my back. Half awake in the pre-dawn light, I scoot closer, nuzzling my nose deeper into the softness of her hair.

A soft chuckle pulls me closer to the surface.

“Tell me it’s not morning yet,” I groan.

The chuckle rises again, awakening a throb in my body and a thrill in my heart.

“That depends when you think night ends and morning begins. It’s just gone five a.m.”

“Hmmf. Middle of the night,” I mumble.

My eyes drift shut again, but it’s not the same. She’s on edge since I woke up.

I don’t have to wait long for it to happen. Her mind is a maze of brilliance, but she’s predictable in hiding her heart. 

She pulls away. “I should go.” 

Perhaps hope makes you hear what you want to hear, but I swear there’s a hint of reluctance in her tone. I hang on to it .

“Do you never give poor Big a break from being beaten up?”

She huffs a gentle laugh. “We’re not training today. He needs rest.” The sadness of last night hangs unspoken in the air.

“So stay.”

Two words, so simple. But she retreats, body and heart. “I need to inform the rest of the Sanctuary network.”

“Has anyone else had the same situation?”

She shakes her head, relaxing her shoulders, as if talking helps her forget herself. “No, thank God.”

“Well then,” I slip my hand under the hem of her shirt, thrilling at the warmth of her skin, “it can wait half an hour.”

I see it passing over her face, a brief flush of softness before the shutters come down again. She shakes her head and sits up, turning away.

A sigh of frustration rushes out of me. I flatten my palms over my face and sigh again. “Magnus!”

“Helen,” she whispers from the edge of the bed.

Slowly, I lift my face out of my hands and find her staring back at me, loneliness and regret fighting for control in her eyes.

I can’t bear seeing her so close and yet so far. I reach out for her arm.

“Helen.” My words slow as I push every bit of honesty I have into them. “I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m just saying you don’t have to do this all alone.”

She looks down at my hand on her wrist. For a full minute, she doesn’t move. Then her fingers find the gaps between mine. “Thank you, sweet Kate,” she speaks at our fingers, such a weight of sadness in the words that a lump rises in my own throat.

“OK, no-one has EVER accused me of being sweet.” I reach for humour to rescue us. She faced enough sadness for one day before even coming to bed.

She still doesn’t look at me, but a smile dimples her cheek. “Vell, zhat’s because no-one haz ever sipped your virgin blood.”

With a grunt, I close my eyes and throw myself back on my pillow. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?"

“No.”

But there's a smile in her voice, and her weight shifts closer. I feel the covers lifting, and she settles back next to me, her one arm draped loosely across my waist. Contentment curls the corners of my mouth up when I feel her head coming to rest on my pillow.

“You have to forgive me. It’s been a long time since someone’s…” she trails off. 

I roll over to ask her the question with my eyes. “What?”

Her mouth hardens for a moment. “Since I trusted someone. And John never was much of a cuddler.”

“You trust him?” It falls out before I can hold back my surprise.

“We’ve shared a lot,” she sighs, and after a pause: “does it bother you?”

“No, no of course not,” I lie over the pit that’s opened in my chest. “I mean, of course you’ve shared a lot. He’s. He’s Ashleigh’s father.”

Her eyes burn through the words I try to plaster over my growing dread. I don’t like the way she’s staring. It makes me talk. It makes me tell too much of the truth. 

“What you share doesn’t bother me. As long as he doesn’t come near me, he doesn’t bother me at all.”

Recognition flashes dark blue at me. Recognition, sympathy and anger. I need to get away from that look. It’s everything I never got when I was eighteen and I needed it, and now it drags up memories I haven’t allowed to surface for years. Harsh memories of fear and pain and rage, of grasping hands and stifled screams.

I try to edge away, but she takes my chin in her hands. “Someone hurt you.” Anger coils around her voice. “John?”

I twist my face away. “No. And it won’t happen again, either. I sleep with a gun, remember?”

Still, she looks at me with that dark blue honesty that makes too much float out of my control. I can feel my breaths shortening under their weight.

“Stop looking at me like that, please!” I can’t keep the knife of panic out. “Everyone has a sad story, and I’m fine. You don’t have to save the world every waking moment.”

Her eyes flash closed. Her mouth smiles regret that instantly douses my fire.

“I mean,” I soften my tone with apology, “you still half an hour left before you have to start, don’t you?”

Tenderly, her lips press against mine. She combs her fingers through my hair. With a sigh, I close my eyes, force back the past and breathe her in. Her kiss is slow and deep, pulling me back to peace with every languid movement. She leads, and I soften into her, letting her lift her blue sweater over my head, sighing as her mouth trails down my throat and her fingers rise over my ribs, gasping as her tongue strokes a puckered nipple.

On the bedside table, her phone buzzes to life.

“Damn.” Her lips close on my breast in a lingering kiss, then she sits up with a sigh and taps the screen. “Hello, Declan,”

 _Helen_ , I can hear the head of the UK Sanctuary’s voice even though the phone is pressed against her ear. _Henry told me what happened to the poisoned angeli. I’m so sorry. Are you all right?_

Sorrow blossoms dark in her eyes. Without thinking, I place a hand on her knee. 

Through her sigh, she laces her fingers into mine with a small smile. “Thank you for thinking of me. You’re a good friend.” She squeezes my fingers as she speaks, and just like yesterday, I’m sure she means more with her words than Declan hears.

Her tongue darts out to wet her lips before she continues. “I only wish we could have done something, found some lead. To have a whole community wiped out like that, without any idea what caused it. It’s devastating.”

 _Is your video link broken? I can’t see you,_ Declan breaks in.

“Oh, no, I’m just not at my desk yet.” She hesitates, a light flush warming her cheeks. I’m suddenly grateful she’s not pressed against me any longer, because my body’s reaction is embarrassingly obvious. A girl needs to keep _some_ secrets from her boss.

_Helen? You sure everything is okay?_

A smile dimples her cheeks. “Everything is fine, Declan. I was just told off for trying to save the world every waking moment. So I was having a bit of a lie-in.”

 _Oh._ There is a pause, and I can imagine his mouth working as it always does when something big is sinking in. _Oh,_ he says again, more softly. _Was it Will?_

A low laugh bubbles through her. “No, Declan. Will is yours and yours alone. I promise. As soon as you can convince him to leave Abby and move to England.”

My eyes stretch wide, and she answers with a wink while he continues, sounding a little flustered. _Ah, anyway. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I can call back later._

“Declan, it’s all right,” she soothes. “Why were you calling?”

_Well, I think Henry and I may have found something._

“What?” Immediately, she’s at attention.

_Asbestos. Some birds are very sensitive to it, far more so than humans. And Henry found traces of asbestos in the samples he took in thr building. Not enough to affect humans, but_

“Of course,” she cuts in. “Thank you, Declan. I’ll run tests on the bodies. If it was asbestos, we have to let the other communities know immediately.”

Ending the call, she turns back to me. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“Go, save the world.” I give her a playful shove towards the edge of the bed. “Besides, letting you relax for more than five minutes would have been too dangerous - you would have gone into shock or something.”

She stills. “That’s it. They had an allergic reaction. It all fits.” She bends down and plants a loud kiss on my lips, bouncing up and away before I can even react. “You’re brilliant.”

“Confused is what I am,” I counter. I honestly have no idea what she’s talking about. “And a little horny,” I whisper to myself as she opens the door. 

She spins, pinning me with a dazzling grin.

“Oh god,” I bury my face in my hands. “You have vampire hearing.”

That laugh that bubbles like a stream and lights liquid fires in me rises again. “Tell me you’re free tonight.”

“I’m free tonight.” My voice is suddenly hoarse.

“Kate.” My name is a sigh, that tugs my eyes up to her.

“Thank you,” she says softly before closing the door behind her.


	7. Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The things she can do to me with just two words. My breath is a dog, straining at its chain. My knees are water.
> 
> “Fuck bourbon,” I gasp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just won the lottery  
> Finding your company,  
> No champagne, no limousines.
> 
> Baby, it’s a mad world,  
> Everybody’s out to get you,  
> But we don’t have to pay attention,  
> We can handle all the pressure.  
> They said it wasn’t easy,  
> But you make everything so easy.  
>  \- Gavin James, Easy
> 
> \--oOo--

By 10pm, there’s nothing left for me to occupy myself with. The champagne and massage oil I went into Old City to buy are waiting next to the fireplace in her bedroom, as is the fluffiest blanket I could find, folded into a soft mattress on the floor. 

I smooth my hair down and knock on her office door. 

“Come in.”

Her voice still sends shivers up my spine. With a final deep breath for courage, I push the door open. 

Her smile turns my knees to jelly. Tonight, finally, it reaches all the way to her eyes.

“Hey,” I greet, walking up to perch against her desk, suddenly a little uncertain what to say. “Was it asbestos in the end?”

I already know it was, because I spent most the day in Henry’s lab, seeking distraction in his joy at having found the solution to the death of the human angels in time to save the other communities around the world. 

She nods, pushing her chair back slightly from her computer and turning to face me. “An allergic reaction to it. We’ve let the other Sanctuaries know and sent out test kits to every urban community of _Angeli_ , to help them avoid the same fate.” She shakes her head, releasing a wave of dark hair from a hand-twisted knot behind her head. “I only wish we had figured it out in time to save ours.”

I move to stand behind her, resting my hands on her shoulders for a moment before sliding them up her neck and into her hair, releasing the knot and sending long, loose curls tumbling down.

“But you saved all the others. That’s something.” I say softly. After two years, I know not to diminish the impact of even a single death. How she holds so much care within her without losing her poise is yet another mystery I doubt I’ll ever solve.

Her head falls back slowly until it comes to rest against my chest. Her eyes drift shut. “That’s something,” she whispers.

The moment is fragile as glass. I move my hands back to her shoulders, suddenly not wanting any more than this, despite the ache that’s been pulsing through me all day. I want to hold her naked underneath me, to taste every part of her, to hear her moan the way she makes me moan at the touch of her lips. But more than that, I want her to let her eyes drift closed and release some of the weight she carries every day.

But she whimpers as my thumb presses into a tight muscle. “Oh, god, that is SO good.”

Her voice, low and throaty, unravels my control. Pressing my thumb deeper into the muscle, thrilling at the way she squirms against me, I find my voice.

“Have you saved what you’ve been working on?”

“On the computer?” She sounds dreamy, responding more to my hands than my question. “It’s automatically backed up every thirty seconds, with a second back-”

“Good,” I interrupt, reaching past her left shoulder and punching her computer’s power button. “For the rest of the night, Dr Magnus, you’re done saving the world. For the rest of the night, we’re concentrating on saving your back from these ridiculously tense muscles.”

A wolfish grin spreads slowly across her face. “How very vulpine of you,” she purrs.

A shamed blush creeps across my cheeks before I can feign understanding of the word. To hide my embarrasment, I step back behind her, grimacing slightly at the loss of her touch.

“I hope that means sexy,” I say, desperately wishing it sounds less lame to her than it does to me, “because that’s what I was going for.”

Her chair swings around to face me. She crosses one long leg over the other, watching me swallow as I follow the movement. Panther-like, she rises. She steps in close enough to press the swell of her breasts into me. Her mouth bends close to my ear. 

“Close enough,” she whispers.

Fuck. The things she can do to me with just two words. My breath is a dog, straining at its chain. My knees are water.

“So, Miss Freelander. What do you have planned for my night off?”

“Uh.” I wrap my arm around her waist to steady myself. “Well, I kinda snuck into your bedroom and set up a -”

“I know, I let you in.” It’s her turn to interrupt me with a wicked dimple.

“No." I pull back in confusion. "No, the door was open.”

She twists in my arm to face the bank of monitors against the wall. Enlarged in the centre is the door to her bedroom, viewed split-screen, from the inside and the outside. She waits until I’m facing it fully, then leans away, pressing a small button set into the antique wood of her desk. With a soft click, a deadlock on the inside of the door turns and it springs softly open.

“Oh.”   
I can’t remember how many fucking times she’s left me unable to say anything else in the past three days. “That’s why it opened despite the doorknob being stuck.”

Her laughter chases bubbles of desire along my spine. “We should go. Firstly, I’m intrigued at what you’ve set up for me. Secondly, the door only opens from here. We’d better go close it before someone steals our champagne.”

—oOo—

I silently thank any gods willing to listen that one of my many part-time jobs was waitressing in a fancy restaurant, where I learnt how to uncork and pour champagne with dignity. Of course, I still have no clue what it tastes like. Wine that costs more per bottle than Jack Daniel’s always seemed pointless.

She takes her flute and tips it against mine before closing her eyes to breathe in the light scent rising from the golden liquid. When she takes a sip, I do the same, starting slightly at the sharp fizz of the minuscule bubbles on my tongue.

“Hmmm. I never knew you had such good taste in wine.” She takes another slow sip. 

I blink both eyes. “Oh, thank god.” I breathe to myself.

“Oh thank god?”

SHIT. Vampire hearing strikes again. I take a gulp of champagne, almost choking on the tart taste. “I’m more of a bourbon girl,” I fumble out.

“Hmmm. You’ll have to show me it’s mysteries. And in return…” she takes another sip and presses her lips to mine, teasing my mouth open. Bubbles burst against my tongue, cold and sharp and bitter-sweet, chasing heat and want to my core and my fingertips. I wrap my hand around her neck, pulling her closer, drinking her in. She slows, following my movements in a heady dance of breath and touch, of taste, of thrills of nipping teeth and whispered moans. 

“Fuck bourbon,” I gasp when she finally breaks away.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. A laugh, maybe. Her nearness muddles my mind and lets me say things without considering their consequences.  
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I know it wasn’t her shuddering sigh, the sudden way she folds against me, pressing her face into the crook of my neck.

“You ok?” I clumsily stroke her hair.

I feel her nodding before she straightens up. Her eyes are pools of indigo. She rests her forehead against mine, and under my awkward hands, the tension in her that I had started to regard as normal melts away.

“Thank you, Kate,” she murmurs. She move her head from side to side. Her voice is low when she continues. “I don’t know how you do it, but you make this easy.”


End file.
